Feral Thoughts

Can you believe this? Mice attack war veteran at nursing home in Dalby

The Brisbane Courier Mail is reporting that an 89-year old man in a nursing home was left bleeding and suffering from a mouse attack.  Plague mice were getting all over him and he was unable to get them off.  The man's family are naturally horrified and Queensland Health Authorites are making urgent investigations.

Mice plagues can be absolutely horrifying, but this seems beyond belief.  I hope authorities act quickly and get this nursing home to clean up its act. 

Individual action needed to control mice

Imagine seeing the first crop on your place for four years.  Three or more years lost to drought - maybe you didn't plant in a couple of those years, at least saving the cost of seed and fertilizer.  But this year you got decent rain and planted and the bank manager gave half a sigh of relief. 

Now imagine that mice have also been at work.  You may not have noticed them in big numbers but they are there, quietly damaging the crop.  It may not be until the wheat heads look a bit white and unhealthy that you realise.  There hasn't been much publicity; no one's talking up a mouse plague.  But they are there and the damage might already be done.

This is the situation facing some grain producers in NSW and Queensland right now.

I've heard stories of some having the sudden realisation that their canola or wheat crop is under attack too late.

Mice plagues are nowadays largely considered a private matter.  By that, I mean that there is little government or industry monitoring of mouse numbers going.  The mice that damage a farmer's crop were born and bred on that property - they haven't come from somewhere else.  The industry research body, the Grains R&D Corporation ensured that an in-crop product - MouseOff - was registered a few years ago and it is available through rural merchants.  So It is really up to individual farmers to monitor their crop for mice and act accordingly.

Acting at the right time is vital. 

Monitoring can be done simply by walking through a crop and counting active mouse holes in a 100 metre transect in a 1 metre wide strip.  Five holes means there are 1,000 mice per hectare, enough to eat 5% of a freshly sown crop per night.

When holes can't be counted, canola-oil soaked paper 10 cm x 10 cm can be pinned out in the crop, 10 metres apart in three 100 metre transects.  If 5% is eaten, mouse activity may be emerging.  If 10% is eaten, immediate treatment is probably needed.   Treatment for mice is relatively inexpensive compared with the current value of crops and is usually very effective.

Mouse plague information and help available

The Grains Research and Development Corporation helped get zinc phosphide bait registered a number of years ago.  Those coping with increased mouse numbers can organise bait through Animal Control Technologies Australia (see sidebar for link).

The GRDC also has pest information available on their webiste, see www.grdc.com.au/pestlinks

Horrible reminder of 1993 plague

Here's a link to a Guiness Book of Records video of the 1993 plauge in Southern Australia.

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2007/guinness-mouse-plague-p1.php

The northern plague is nothing like this and we have better tools to cope with the registration of Mouseoff (link to Animal Control Technologies on sidebar).  However, this never fails to impress how hard some people in the bush have it - a good season finally arrives and so do the mice.

Mouse Plague in north needs action

A quiet mouse plague is going on in Queensland's Darling Downs and the north of New South Wales.  I haven't seen any media attention as yet, but a massive amount of bait is getting hauled north to cope with big mouse numbers.  I drove west from Brisbane a couple of weeks ago and the country was looking magnificent, probably the best season in the last decade.  It would be terrible if mice took out crops only weeks away from harvest.

It's quite a while since we've experienced a major mouse plague.  Northern mice plagues don't tend to get to the incredible densities of those in the west of NSW or the Mallee, but the Darling Downs actually has them with more regularity than the south.

Those that live through a serious mouse plague tend to remember it for life.  When I've taken them into an animal house, they might shudder at the smell of mice, for example.  Our memory seems to lock in smells that bring back emotions associated with particular events, places or people.

Let's hope that those experiencing this mouse plague are able to get on top of it with early, intense baiting.  Maybe then it won't be an event they remember for life.

It's been a while since a big mouse plague

On average we have a mouse plague every four years or so in Australia. I wonder how long before the next one.